Family
by blacklitchick
Summary: Michonne feels her family is falling apart.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Family

**Spoilers**: Episode 5X15 – "Try"

**Summary**: Michonne feels her family is falling apart.

**A/N:** All rights to The Walking Dead. The lyrics belong to Portishead, "Western Eyes." This is Part 1 of a two part story.

_But I'm aching at the view_

_Yes I'm breaking at the scenes just like you_

Michonne closed her front door and leaned against it feeling too tired to walk up the stairs. She was worried about Sasha and Tara. In the past she would have said a quick silent prayer for her friends, but she stopped believing in any higher power a long time ago. She was going to propose a meeting soon. Something needed to be done before Sasha hurt herself or someone else. She needed to talk to Rick. Even though they lived together and worked the same job she missed him. They hadn't really _talked_ much since their first couple days in the community. They'd been inseparable for so long it felt strange to mostly only say good morning or good night to each other as they began and ended their days. The people she grew to love as her family were all relativity safe, alive, clean, and well-fed, but she knew they were breaking apart.

She sighed and looked around the house. It was modern and nice, but it didn't feel like home yet. The prison felt more like a sanctuary than Alexandria. She couldn't believe how much she missed that place. She missed seeing Rick work tirelessly at farming to feed them all. She missed reading comic books in the warm sun with Carl. She missed late night talks with Hershel. She chuckled when she thought she even missed Darryl giving her fleas.

She couldn't shake the feeling she was in the Twilight Zone now. The innocence of this community didn't feel right. She felt such a rush earlier killing Walkers again. She knew how crazy that was, but she couldn't help it. Killing was a certain kind of normal now.

Michonne shook herself out of her thoughts and made her way up the stairs. She passed by Carl's open door and smiled when she saw clothes and comic books strewn around his unmade bed. It looked like a real teenager's room. If nothing else she was glad Carl was able to be a kid again.

Her constable's uniform was still laid out on her bed. She ran her fingers down the seams of the shirt and sighed again. She was tired of hearing that sound come out of her mouth. She knew what it felt like to get everything you wanted and still have a cloud of unhappiness follow you everywhere. It's the same feeling she had after graduating law school at the top of her class and getting hired by the most prestigious firm in Atlanta. She had everything but still felt so lost.

Just like now.

She couldn't stop the nagging feeling in the back of her head that something was coming that was far more dangerous than the Governor or Terminus.

Michonne looked at the clock. It was 2:54 PM. She needed to relieve Rick of his shift soon. She put on her uniform and rushed back down the stairs. The glint of her katana caught her eye as she made her way out of the door. She felt as urge to remove her weapon from its mantle, but kept on walking.

The first things that greeted her when she stepped outside were several screams and shouts. She saw some of the townspeople run towards the commotion, and she took off after them. She reached her hand in her waistband to make sure her handgun was tucked in the back. She felt like she hit a brick wall when she reached the end of the street. She didn't know what she was expecting to see, but it wasn't a bloodied and ranting Rick waving his gun around. She saw Pete on the ground, and Jessie crying silently as she watched in horror. Michonne made eye contact with Glenn and she was sure the look on his face mirrored her own. They feared their leader was losing his mind again. Carl ran up to her and silently pleaded for her to do something. Deanna stood in the front of the semi-circle surrounding Rick, looking at him with disgust. Her eyes traveled to Michonne with the same look.

Michonne turned away and looked up at the sky. She saw Sasha back in the watch tower firing shots at any and every Walker she could see. She felt a chill go down her back. Her grandmother used to say that meant someone was walking on your grave. She let the shudder pass and took out her gun. She walked up behind Rick and whacked him in the head. He fell to the asphalt with a dud. She tried not to look at the tears streaming down Carl's face. Instead she watched as Rick's chest moved up and down as he laid there unconscious.

"Help me get him inside." She said quietly to Glenn.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Family

**Spoilers**: Episode 5X15 – "Try"

**Summary**: Michonne feels her family is falling apart.

**A/N:** Thanks for the feedback everyone! I hope you enjoy Part2. All rights to The Walking Dead. The lyrics belong to Portishead from the song "Western Eyes."

_They have values of a certain taste  
The innocent they can hardly wait  
To crucify, invalidating  
Turning to dishonesty  
With western eyes and serpents breath  
They lay their own conscience to rest  
But then they lie and then they dare to be  
Hidden heroes candidly_

Rick didn't remember much about the first night he got crazy drunk. It was something to do with a dare, a beer bong tournament, and shots of vodka stolen from Shane's father liquor cabinet. But the morning after was seared into his memory. He'd never felt so sick and miserable in his life. His head felt like the size of a semi-truck. He could barely lift it to puke in the trash can his mother had placed next to his bed with a shake of her head. He vowed to never get drunk again, but the next weekend he and Shane were back at it.

When Rick woke up for a few confusing seconds he thought he was 19 again trying to recover from another hangover. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings. He realized he was lying on an old army cot in the spare room of the makeshift Constable's station. His next thoughts were of Carl and Judith. He jumped up to go find his children, but immediately sank back down on the cot when a wave of dizziness hit him.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you." Rick heard a low voice coming from the door. He didn't have to open his eyes to know who was there.

"Michonne," He said in a hoarse whisper.

"You put on quite to show out there." Rick was able to open his eyes enough to see her black pants clad legs walk up to the cot.

"Carl? Judith?" He asked as he placed a hand over his closed eyes to shield himself from the overhead light.

"Both fine. They're at Carol's house."

Rick tried to sit up, but his body protested. He fell back down onto the cot.

"Did I kill him?"

"No."

"Who gave me the sucker punch? One of Deanna's minions?," He sneered, "Tobin? Spencer?"

"It was me," She said.

Rick forgot about his aching head and sat up so fast his head started to swim. He leaned back against the wall and kept his legs on the floor. Michonne sat next to him with her arms crossed, refusing to look at him. She was barely containing her disappointment.

"What...why...?" He could barely get his thoughts together.

"Did you know Sasha has been spending nearly 24 hours a day hunting Walkers? She's not sleeping and barely eating."

"What does this have to..." Rick started to say, but Michonne cut him off.

"Did you know Carl has been sneaking off into the woods to chase after a girl? Did you know that even though Tara is in stable condition no one knows if or when she'll wake up," Michonne voice was getting louder as she went on, "Did you fucking know losing Noah only a short time after losing Bob, Beth and Tyreese is devastating us or do you not care about your family anymore?"

"Don't do this Michonne. All I ever do is make sure y'all are safe. The thangs I said out there were to protect y'all. I'm trying to keep this community safe!" He said. He was starting to simmer with the same rage he had earlier.

"And you're doing a great job at it right now." Michonne said sarcastically. "I don't know what's going on with you but your actions could get us all kicked out. Do you want Judith back out there with nothing to eat?"

Rick stared at the white wall in front of him, refusing to concede to her point. "I wasn't wrong about what I said out there."

"No. No you weren't. I've been having the same thoughts, but your delivery was downright scary. No one is going to listen to the crazy man ranting in the street."

"So you hit me?" He asked with hurt dripping in voice.

"I had to. I didn't think you'd stop any other way. You could have hurt someone with the way you were waving your gun around." She paused for a moment. "You almost hurt Carl when you threw him off of you." Michonne finally looked at Rick and saw his eyes get glassy.

"I would never hurt my son." He said barely above a whisper.

"But you could have." Michonne shook her head.

The tension was thick in the air of the small room. That sat a part in silence each lost in their thoughts.

"He's beating Jessie." Rick finally said.

Michonne nodded her head and looked up at the ceiling. "Then he needed to be dealt with, but from what Glenn told me and from what I observed it seemed to be much more than Officer Grimes trying to save the day."

"Jessie needed my help."

"Then why didn't you come to me? I could have helped too. This is not the Old West. We are supposed to be partners."

"There was no time. I was talking to Jessie and Pete came home. It just happened. I tried to get him to come quietly, but he wanted a fight."

"He wasn't the only one."

"What I'm supposed just stand there and watch as some man beats Lori!" Rick yelled.

"Do you hear yourself? Did you hear it? You just called her Lori." Michonne said quietly.

Rick leaned forward with hands covering his face. His sobs were silent, but she saw how his back moved up and down in rhythm with his tears.

"Did you ever grieve for her?" Michonne asked after his crying subsided.

Rick sat up again and wiped his nose with his bandaged hand. "If seeing visions of her everywhere and talking to her on the phone doesn't count as grieving then no. Too much was going on. You showed up. We had to rescue Glenn and Maggie. The war with the Governor. It all just happened so fast. So I just put Lori out of my mind. I hadn't thought about her at length until we first arrived here."

Rick turned his head slightly so he could look at Michonne. Her gaze was back on the ceiling.

"I was horrible to her the last few months of her life." He said. "I could barely look at her. I couldn't get the image of how she looked at me after I told her I killed Shane out of my head. After she died, I just kept thinking if I would have taken one of the multiple olive branches she tried to hand me then maybe...maybe things would have been different. Maybe I could have saved her." He sniffed and shook his head. "She would have loved it here. This is what she wanted. Somewhere safe for us. For Carl. And now I'm here and she can't be."

"Is that why you fixated on Jessie? Were trying to recreate your perfect family?" Michonne said.

Rick let out a humorless laugh. "We were never perfect. Even before everything started. Our marriage was barely holding on." He sighed. "Godamnit Michonne what's wrong with me?"

"You're crazy." Michonne deadpanned.

This time Rick's laugh held a tinge of humor."I guess it takes one to know one."

"Exactly. I know better than anyone what it feels like to second guess your actions thinking of a way to save those you love. But it doesn't help anything. It's torture. No matter what you did differently, Rick, you wouldn't have been able to save her. Your gun or your machete could never combat child birth."

"Yeah..." Rick drawled out slowly, "Your boyfriend you used to talk to. Thinking of ways you could have saved him doesn't haunt you anymore?"

"A lot about that day will always haunt me," She said while trying to keep images of Andre's lifeless body out of her head, "But I can't let it bring me down again. Look it's no secret that all of us are fucked up. Me and you probably moreso than most, but that doesn't mean things can't change. That we can't change," She shook her head, "I was out in the woods today with Sasha and Rosita and felt such a rush when we took on a herd of Walkers."

Rick's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" He asked with concern.

Michonne lifted up her hand to stop his questioning. "I'm fine. The point is that we were out there on our own for so long and went through one battle after another. Fighting for survival is embedded in our DNA now. We just have to find a way to balance that with knowing when we have a good thing going on," She waved her hand around, "And this community is a good thing. We just have to teach them how to stay safe because we know better than anyone that utopia has an expiration date."

Rick just sighed and closed his eyes again. They sat in silence again for a few minutes. Some of the earlier tension started to dissipate.

Michonne finally stood up. "I need to go talk to Deanna. Plead your case. I'll make things right." She turned to walk away but stopped when Rick grabbed her hand. She looked back at bruised eyes staring intently at her.

"We're okay right?" He asked.

"Yeah everyone is meeting at Glenn and Maggie's later to discuss next steps and to work on helping Sasha. We'll figure it out." She said.

"No, I don't mean everyone else. I mean you and me. I need us to be okay," Rick squeezed her hand, "I can't do this without you Michonne. I just..just really need us to be okay." He held her gaze looking like he was of verge of tears again. She gave his hand a tiny squeeze back.

"We will be." She said. They stared at each other a few more moments before she dropped his hand and left the room.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Exhausted. That was the only word running through Michonne's head. She walked up the short set of steps to her house, and collapsed into one of the porch chairs. She hadn't felt so drained since after the prison fell. The talk with Deanna didn't go well. She knew it would be a hard sell to plead Rick's case, but she hadn't expected the woman to be so vehement that Rick was a bigger threat than everything that's outside of those walls.

Rick was right. She wanted to work with the people of Alexandria, but they just didn't get it. She knew Rick wouldn't go quietly. She knew she and the rest of the group wouldn't let Deanna exile their leader. Michonne rubbed her eyes, and sat back in the chair. She needed a few more minutes of peace before she had to warn the others that another battle was in their future.

"Michonne?" She heard a tentative voice call her. She opened her eyes and saw Carl standing at the foot of the steps. His hat was slightly crooked and he had a look of determination on his face.

"Carl," She stood up, and walked across the porch and met him at the top of the steps, "What are you doing here? Why aren't you at Carol's?"

"I snuck out when she was changing Judith. I want to see my Dad."

Michonne reached up and straightened his hat. "I don't think that's a good idea right now, kid."

"I need to know he's okay."

"He's not in a great head space right now. Give him a few more hours to himself."

Carl looked down at his feet. When he looked back up all of the determination had drained from his face, and he looked his age again. "Is he like he was at the prison? You know, how he lost it after mom died?"

Michonne sighed and gestured for Carl to sit in one of the porch chairs. She sat back in the chair she'd vacated earlier. "Your dad is a complicated man," She paused trying to think of the right words, "It's hard to be a leader. It's hard to be responsible for keeping so many lives safe. Sometimes the weight of that gets to be too much, and the stress of it all comes out in strange ways."

Carl was silent as he took in all of what Michonne said. "So what's up with him and Ron and Sam's mom?" He finally asked.

Michonne leaned back in her chair. She had almost forgotten how perceptive the young man could be. "What do you think is up with them?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I've seen the way he looks at her. It's weird. I think he likes her or something. But," He paused and shook his head, "Never mind."

"No, tell me. You know you can tell me everything. We're buds right." Michonne smiled at him.

"At first, I never thought he would ever like anyone like that again after Mom. But I was just a kid then. I didn't know any better."

Michonne smile a little bigger at that. "But what do you think now?" She asked.

"I think I want him to be happy, and I know he needs more than me and Judith to be happy."

"That's not true, Carl. You and your sister are his world."

"He loves us. He loves us more than anything, but we can't be everything to him. I'm growing up and Judith will too. He needs some other form of companionship. He should have some type of adult companionship." Suddenly embarrassed, Carl stood up and walked to the porch railing and looked out at the mini lake in the courtyard. Michonne watched him in silence allowing him to take the time he needed to get his thoughts together. He turned back to her after a few minutes.

"Jessie seems like a good person. She's always really nice to me when I go over to see Ron, but she's married. Carol told me Pete beats her, and I understand why Dad tried to save her. It's what he does. But I don't think she's the right person for him."

"Why not?"

Carl avoided the question. "I know what happened between Mom, Dad, and Shane. He doesn't think I know, but people like to gossip. I've heard things over the years. I hated my Mom for awhile. After she died I felt guilty for so long. I just wish I would have loved her more the last few months of her life."

Michonne marveled at how father and son were so much alike. "She knew you loved her." She told him.

"Yeah. I know. Anyway it's just that I thought me and Dad wouldn't ever get to love someone else like we loved Mom again. Maybe we didn't even deserve to love someone like that again." He looked Michonne in the eye. "But then you came along."

"Carl..." Michonne started.

"You changed our lives. You made us better. You gave us the strength to try to heal and move on. We wouldn't have made it this far without you. I love you, Michonne."

She couldn't stop the tears from escaping her eyes. "Oh, kid you know I love you too." She pulled him into a tight hug.

"Andre was lucky to have you as a mom." He said.

Michonne pulled away from their hug, smoothed down the hair sticking out from his hat. "And Lori was lucky to have you as a son. You're becoming such a good man. I'm proud of you."

Carl smiled and looked like he was on the verge of tears himself. "I think you're the right person for Dad." He said quietly.

"Carl, I care about your dad, but we're just friends." She said.

"It was just you, me, and him on the road together for so long. I saw the way he looked at you and the way you looked at him. That's why I said the thing with Jessie is weird. He looks at her in this strange, animal like way. He looks at you with adoration."

Michonne was left speechless for a moment. She had always pushed away thoughts of her and Rick being more than friends. She didn't want to think about how Rick adored her, or how she might adore him back. She needed to keep focus on the problems at hand. They didn't have time for anything else right now.

"What your father and I may or may not feel for each other is not important right now. Coming up with a plan to keep Deanna from exiling him should be our focus." She told him.

"Okay. You're right. Besides I think you're too good for him at the moment anyway. He needs to work on earning you." He said with a laugh.

She was happy he was still able to laugh. "What am I going to do with you?" She asked with a laugh of her own. She put an arm around his shoulders and led him to their front door. "Come on. I need to get changed then we're going to Glen and Maggie's to start planning."

He nodded and his game face was back on. He knew his family would take Alexandra before they let anything happen to his father.

* * *

**A/N:** Again think you all for the feedback. I appreciated it so much. This was only supposed to be a two part story, but the muse in me wanted more.


End file.
